what you need - industrial design student wants to know

[Guest]

hi
i'm a student of indusrial design doing a project regarding coffee.
i chose to deel with coffee adicts and their needs.
actualy, i have to design an object/ product for people like you.
so i'm loking to get some info and ideas from you about things you want or need regarding your coffee drinking.
thank you for your help,

hovav

[JulieJayne]

How about a properly designed coffee grinder.
By that I mean one where you put 15 grams of beans into the top and get 15 grams of ground coffee out of the bottom.

[blackice]

coffee adicts! LOL

You've got the wrong place dude!

J/K

A good grinder (check out the La Marzzoco grinder). A good (cheap) dual-boiler pidded espresso machine (check out references on La Marzzoco GS3)

Check out older posts, the coffeegeek side, the home-barista too! Also visit sites of manufacturers who give extensive technical details like Olympia- MokaExpress in Switzerland)

A tamper with configurable spring strength (tamping strength 20-40lbs)

Good thermo-insulated cups - check out Bodum La Pavina

A nice vacuum pot (bodum again)

A roaster (check out I-Roast, Hottop and Cafe Gene) and also SweetMaria's home roasting DYI devices

[Raf]

Very interesting question! Why don't you ask Phil for an account, so we can discuss this in depth. I agree with above contributors: we need a decent grinder first and foremost. Next: an absolutely temp stable espresso machine. Next: a cheap, fully controlable homeroaster with radiant heat and cooling cycle.

For me, a grinder has to be: mess free. Grinding coffee is messy, anything you can do to lessen the mess, is more people bying grinders (wives don't take kindly to mess in the kitchen). Also, cleaning a grinder is a bitch. Make a grinder that practically cleans itself. Also, this will mean that less coffee gets lost. See above comment about "fifteen grams go in, fifteen grams come out". NO DOSERS please! They get filled with stale coffee and make a lot of mess. Get rid of them. I'm sure I can think of more stuff, but I have to work a bit now.

[Raf]

I made this sticky, because I expect this will cause quite a stir here...

[blackice]

On grinders: http://temesblog.blogspot.com/2005/07/m ... rd_02.html

it has 3 more mods

I think the creator of that site is a member here (Teme?)

[Beanie]

Hello Hovav,

Here's a link to an industrial engineer who now builds really nice espresso machines that are lusted after by many: www.keesvanderwesten.com - maybe he'd be willing to chat with you - he's a helluva nice guy

This link is for the ever important grinder: www.versalab.com/server/coffee/grinder.html - what I remember about this when it was grinding was that beans were flying out - they need to stay inside

Nice to see the focus on the "prosumer" - which also means pro-quality (not necessary to keep up with quantity) at an "affordable" price. What would be superbly impressive is getting the espresso machine in the sub-€1000 and the grinder in the sub-€500 price range

I'd like a machine that is:
- easy to adjust brew temperature (that is, temp where the water hits the coffee and not in the boiler)
- easy to adjust brew pressure
- ability to control above to remain #1 constant and #2 (a nice to have) "scalable" for experimentation purposes
- oh so easy to clean
- oh so easy to replace parts (eventually) or even upgrade parts when improved versions of bits are released
- not too loud, nice quiet almost-stealth-mode
- no-burn steam wand
- ergonomical
- simple conversion from water tank to mains-connected and vice-versa
- better water filters that are compact
- a proper tamper included
- a double-spouted PF and a bottomless PF (forget the single spouted - what's the point?)
- a really really good, well-documented manual that also identifies parts used & dimensions?
- well-insulated

As for the grinder:
- what Raf mentioned
- stepless grind adjustment
- quiet
- fits under counter-tops comfortably
- dosing mechanism(hopper) pre-grind rather than post-grind either by volume or by mass
- mini-hoppers no more than oh 100g worth of beans that can be sealed air-tight and all you need to do is (simply and non-messily) switch hoppers to have a different coffee
- when it "drops" down to the PF, it's is well distributed... so maybe the funnel end can be somewhat adjustable/replacement per PF/basket size.... and then like those retail grinders, vibrates to evenly distribute and settle the grounds before you need to tamp it. I just hate have to touch the coffee grounds. However the Mazzer Swifter does it but without the tamping mechanism.

Okay, that's more than enough from me now...

Good Luck... and hope to see you join TMC

[igloman]

Hey,
very nice topic.
I want to say that there is also the regular coffee market. The biggest dilemma at this moment is to have a machine with uses fresh ground coffee and at the same time can make one fresh cup and also large jugs. there is really no machine on the market like this

[fiend]

There was an interesting lever machine on home barista a few months ago where you put pre-boiled water in the top, and then forced it through by pulling down two handles on either side. The handles functioned in much the same way as the arms on a budget supermarket corkscrew.

The water is boiled somewhere else (eg. in a kettle), and the plunger at the top is very small, so you would have very precise control over temperature and volume for the water. There would be no worries about overheating or anything like that, and it could be operated anywhere you can boil water.

So using a system like that as a basis, I'm sure you could come up with an interesting design for what would be the cheapest and simplest espresso machine to make gourmet quality coffee.

Failing that, a grinder with infinite adjustment (preferably a worm drive with the ability to disengage it for gross adjustments) that had no grind collection points, and could grind a precise amount of beans to order in less than 10s with no overheating or spillage would be v. much appreciated.

Rhys

[Belgik]

Dear Guest, student of industrial design. Very interesting.
Now, I am here assuming that, as a student in industrial design, the intention would NOT be to ask you to design a Ferrari or an entire espresso machine or grinder, with all that this would imply.

I would make some suggestions for "simple" requirements.
-Grinder: most grinders come with a (relatively) huge coffee reservoir ("hopper") on top, and a totally useless and equally large "doser" on the exit side. Both are geared to the "professional" market, whereas a lot of these machines (Mazzer Mini, Macap M5...) are in fact mostly used by the (upmarket, by definition) home consumer.
It would be useful to have a grinder
-with a sensible "hopper" on top: small, and/or divided in 4 parts for different types of coffee, and/or with an automatic bean weighing device (even though that might be more useful on the "exit" side, since some is lost in-between).
-with a sensible "coffee exit" design. No doser is necessary, but there might be some kind of "coffee reception dock", so that the portafilter would be filled straight from the grinder with an adjustable weighed X-grams of coffee.
Also, any improvement in the cleaning out of a grinder would be a big plus (easily removed burrs, built-in vacuum cleaner/blower...)
The espresso machine might have an adjustable timer built-in, either just for information, or even one that stops the coffee from flowing at (adjustable) 25 seconds...
Also, it would be useful to have espresso machines with a 24-hour clock, automatically "on" at, say, 06:00 and "off" at 07:00 and/or other hours of the day.

For those who cannot plumb their espresso machines, the water tank is a weak point in many machines: the water may go stale when leaving the machine unused for a week or more in the summer (holiday...). A machine with a rational hookup system into closed water bottles (like 5 gallon demijohn/dame jeanne bottles...) would be neat. Or even a special water bottle with a valve, just "drop" it onto the machine, and you're in business...

What about a drip-tray immersion pump, for automatically emptying

If you are very ambitious, you might try to design a perfect consumer, too (that might even be fun, even though I suspect it would take some practice!).

[MKSwing]

Hi there,
It is impossible to find a cup warmer for coffee machine that are able to warm the cups.

[Raf]

I agree with Stéphane: most cup warmers are woefully inadequate. But I guess this is for safety reasons as well (heat + human stupidity = danger).

[Guest]

Oh 2 more things I forgot earlier... when you switch on the brew switch/lever, it automatically starts and displays a "seconds" timer until you turn off the brew switch again...

Don't know if it's feasible, but a temp sensor for steaming milk so you know the temp to stop stretching and when to stop heating the milk (for those who can't rely on their own built-in hand sensors :p )

In a rush to sign in again,
bean_believer

[mhuk]

I just run a bit of hot water out of the machine to warm the cup.

[Belgik]

I just run a bit of hot water out of the machine to warm the cup.

I use the (empty) cup to fill-up with the "temperature surfing" water...I use large cups for my large café con leche...